Need some advice

I'm studying for an upcoming cert. and I need to run XP Pro and Server 2003 at the same time (with the server set up as a domain and XP joined to it). I've thought about either buying a separate box and switch and just having a small network set up for the 2 pcs or installing one or the other on this Dell machine I have that I use solely for stuff like this. The specs on the Dell are:

P4 2.66Ghz
1GB RAM
80GB HD

It's an older PC and not powerful compared to today's hardware but I'm wondering if it would be enough to run a virtual machine. If it is, should I install Server 2003 on it and then run XP as a virtual machine or should I install XP and run Server 2003 as a virtual machine? Also, any ideas on what software I could/should use? I've downloaded VirtualPC '07 but I've not installed it yet. Any ideas would be very welcome and appreciated. Thanks

The CPU is capable, but the 1GB of RAM is gonna choke it like a Dachshund trying to down a T-Rex thighbone...

Needs more RAM, and more hard drive space really. The CPU will get the job done but, if you plan to do anything serious with that setup, it's just not going to perform adequately - slow, yes, adequately, no.

RAM is the biggest issue here as you'd be putting a big strain on the host OS (even if it's 2K3 that's still pushing it, even with giving XP 256MB max).

It's doable, just not adequate. If you had all that sitting in front of you set up properly and functional right now, your biggest gripe would be how slow the whole thing is, anyway.

Good luck, regardless...

Install 2003 and run XP in a VM. Like Joe said, memory is your biggest constraint. Consider using Windows 2000 with 128 MB RAM instead of XP with 256.

He just needs it to study. 1GB of RAM is adequate, there will be some disk swapping if you are running user programs, but that should be fine.

Install Win2003 and give the WinXP VM 256mb, as others have mentioned. I'd personally use VMWare Server 2, but Virtual PC 2007 is fine.

Alright so I got it up and running a couple weeks or so ago and finally got around to setting up AD, DNS and DHCP on Server 2003 (which was kind of a pita as I wanted to keep it disconnected from my home network). I authorized my DCHP server and set the scope for it but my XP Pro virtualpc won't connect and receive an IP via DHCP. I've tried running the NICs in local, specifying the NIC for the virtualpc and running in NAT mode as well. Running in NAT will get an IP assigned but it's not in the scope I specified. I'm running Virtual PC 2007 if that's of any help. Any ideas would be much appreciated.

Did you reboot the virtual PC when you specified the NIC?

Local is for networks that only exists within Virtual PC.
NAT place a gateway between the Virtual PC and the outside network.
Specifying the nic should put you on the same subnet as your host OS and is the option you must pick if you want the Virtual PC to see the same DHCP server as the host OS.

If it still doesn’t work, download VirtualBox (free) and try that instead of Virtual PC 2007.

Awesome...I'll try Virtual Box and see how that goes. If for some reason I'm unable to get that to work, I've got most of a PC laying around and for under $200 I could get it up and running and get a cheap switch thrown in there as well. I may do this anyway as the investment won't be huge (still $200 is $200) and it'll give me a 2nd box to play with. Thanks again for the advice and I'll definitely try Virtual Box out